The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Head Field and the St. Louis Cardinals at Avon Park

For three springs at the end of the land boom, a town of a few thousand people was the training camp of the world champions of baseball.

How it happened

Colonel Charles R. Head, an Avon Park businessman, was a long-standing personal friend of Sam Breadon, the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals. After the Cardinals won the 1926 World Series, Head persuaded Breadon to bring the team to Avon Park and persuaded the city to build a ballpark worthy of it. The Cardinals signed a three-year contract and trained at Avon Park through February and March of 1927, 1928 and 1929.[byrne-cardinals]

The field was built new: a five-acre playing surface, completely clayed with the infield grassed, a concrete grandstand and a modern clubhouse, with the Cardinals’ own groundskeeper supervising the work. It opened as Cardinal Field and was afterwards renamed Head Field for the man who had brought the team.[byrne-cardinals]

The timing is not a coincidence. This is 1926-27, exactly when Avon Park was voting $355,000 of bonds and finishing the Hotel Jacaranda. A big-league training camp was a publicity asset of the same kind as the Highway Beautification Bonds and the Special Tax District for Publicity Purposes — the town was buying attention.

What happened there

The Cardinals of those years were the team of Grover Cleveland Alexander, Chick Hafey, Frankie Frisch and Pepper Martin. The New York Yankees came over more than once, bringing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and one Yankees-Cardinals game drew 5,000 spectators — more than the population of Avon Park.[byrne-cardinals]

On 16 March 1928 Ruth hit a home run out of the ground and into the street beyond, and the street is said to have been renamed Ruth Street for it.[byrne-cardinals] Avon Park fans presented Ruth with a fifty-two-inch, fourteen-pound commemorative bat inscribed “To Babe Ruth, Fans in Avon Park,” which the Historical Society now displays.[aphs-baseball-museum]

What the Washington papers add

Because the Washington Senators trained at Tampa and came to Avon Park to play, the Evening Star and The Washington Times filed datelined despatches from Avon Park in all three springs. They are the fullest contemporary coverage of Head Field, and they add four things.

The move was thought strange at the time. A syndicated column in November 1926: “The St. Louis Cardinals will train at Avon Park, Fla., next season instead of at San Antonio, Tex. It is the exception for a team to change training quarters after the winning of a pennant. Most big league managers are decidedly superstitious.”[douglas-1926-11-09] The Cardinals had just won the 1926 World Series at San Antonio and moved anyway.

The deal was for three years, and that is exactly what it ran. By March 1927 the trade press had the Cardinals returning to Avon Park “for the next three years.”[star-1927-03-21]

The 1928 Grapefruit League season opened here. On 8 March 1928 the Senators played the Cardinals at Avon Park in the first exhibition game of the season, and Denman Thompson of the Star filed from “this picturesque little Winter resort.”[star-1928-03-08]

And the golf course was part of the attraction. Filing from Avon Park on 21 March 1927, John B. Keller noted that Sam Rice, Clark Griffith and Nick Altrock had been on the links — and that Griffith had written to Bucky Harris asking that his players “put the ancient Scottish game out of their” systems.[star-1927-03-21] The Pinecrest course was in its first full season.

By 1929, under Billy Southworth’s first spring as manager, the Associated Press described a camp “reinforced by more than a score of players” from the Cardinals’ farm system — so busy that the men “take lunch at Avon Park field.”[star-1929-03-06]

Why they left

Breadon gave two reasons: inadequate hotel accommodation, made worse by the Avon Park Hotel fire of 1927, and poor field conditions. Mayor C. S. Donaldson publicly disputed both in October 1929. The Cardinals went to Bradenton for 1930 and stayed until 1936.[byrne-cardinals]

Toronto Maple Leafs spring training (1938–1941)

Following the Cardinals’ departure, Head Field resumed service as a professional spring training site for four consecutive seasons, from 1938 through 1941, hosting the International League’s Toronto Maple Leafs.[maxwell-1976][sabr-dick-fowler]

The Maple Leafs scheduled major league Grapefruit League exhibitions at Head Field, hosting the Detroit Tigers on 9 April 1938 and the Boston Red Sox.[up-ivp-1938-04-10][maxwell-1976] During the 1939 and 1940 camps, the team developed future Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame pitchers Dick Fowler and Phil Marchildon.[sabr-dick-fowler][sabr-phil-marchildon]

In the spring of 1940, Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri served as the Maple Leafs’ playing manager at Head Field.[sabr-tony-lazzeri] Lazzeri had previously played on the diamond in March 1927 and March 1928 as the second baseman for the New York Yankees’ “Murderers’ Row” lineup alongside Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The residency concluded following the 1941 spring season due to wartime travel restrictions. Full documentation is given in Toronto Maple Leafs Spring Training at Head Field, 1938–1941.

Since

The ground is now Charles R. Head Field. Following the Cardinals’ 1929 departure, the facility continued to serve as a professional spring training base for six minor league clubs between 1934 and 1954—the Columbus Red Birds (1934–1936), Toronto Maple Leafs (1938–1941 under manager Tony Lazzeri), Buffalo Bisons (1950–1951), Toledo Mud Hens (1952), Charleston Senators (1953), and Portsmouth Merrimacs (1954)—as well as hosting 1930s exhibition appearances by the barnstorming House of David.[sabr-spring-training-florida] The Historical Society operates an Avon Park Baseball Museum inside the Depot Museum at 3 North Museum Avenue, displaying photographs, historical uniforms (including a 1952 Toledo Mud Hens jersey), the 1928 Babe Ruth presentation bat, and tributes to local major leaguers Hal McRae and Thomas Gordon.[aphs-baseball-museum]

Contemporary corroboration

Everything above came originally from one uncited local-history blog. It is now confirmed from the contemporary press, in an unexpected place: La Gaceta, the Spanish-language daily of Tampa’s cigar-making community, which carried close daily coverage of the Grapefruit League.

Its Avon Park mentions cluster exactly where they should — thirteen pages in 1927, ten in 1928, nine in 1929, almost all in February and March, and effectively none afterwards.

On 7 March 1927, in its first Avon Park spring:

“Frisch está practicando en Avon Park y el presidente de los ‘rojos’ de St. Louis, Sam Breadon, asegura que la ausencia de Hornsby, el hombre que conquistó un campeonato mundial para su club, no es notada, teniendo en cuenta el calibre de Frisch.”[gaceta-1927-03-07]

Frankie Frisch training at Avon Park, newly acquired from the Giants in the Rogers Hornsby trade, with Sam Breadon named as the club’s president — the same Breadon whose friendship with Charles Head is said to have brought the team.

On 8 March 1928: “Los Senadores jugarán hoy en Avon Park, con los Cardenales” — the Washington Senators playing the Cardinals at Avon Park that day.[gaceta-1928-03-08]

So the three seasons, the club president, the star player and the visiting American League opposition are all confirmed from 1927 and 1928 newspapers. The remaining details — Head’s role, the field’s construction, Ruth’s home run, Ruth Street, the hotel fire, Breadon’s complaints — are still single-sourced.

A dating discrepancy

The Highlands News-Sun‘s own town history places the Cardinals’ stay “in the 1930s.”[newssun-charm] It was 1927 to 1929. The confusion is easy to make, because they arrived as champions of the 1926 World Series and won again in 1931 — from Bradenton.

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Spring Training Database: Florida Sites — SABR Spring Training Research Committee (2025) · archival
  2. Jason Byrne, Florida History Blog, Cardinals Played in Avon Park from 1927-1929 (2026)
  3. Avon Park Historical Society, Avon Park Baseball Museum (2026)
  4. La Gaceta, Tampa, La Gaceta (Tampa, Fla.), 7 March 1927, page 3: baseball notes (1927)
  5. La Gaceta, Tampa, La Gaceta (Tampa, Fla.), 8 March 1928, page 3: Noticias de base-ball (1928)
  6. Douglas Daily Dispatch (Douglas, Ariz.), Douglas Daily Dispatch (Douglas, Ariz.), 9 November 1926, page 6 — the Cardinals to train at Avon Park (1926)
  7. John B. Keller, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Nationals at Avon Park for Pair of Contests With World Champion Cardinals, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 March 1927, page 26 (1927)
  8. Denman Thompson, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Veteran Griff Pitchers in Fine Form, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 8 March 1928, page 36, datelined Avon Park (1928)
  9. Brian Bell, Associated Press, in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Southworth Keeping Cardinals Busy, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 6 March 1929, page 30, datelined Avon Park (1929)
  10. Elaine Levey, Highlands News-Sun, From The Archives, History of the 'City of Charm' (2026)
  11. United Press, Tigers Play Toronto at Avon Park, Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, Calif.), 10 April 1938, page 4 (1938)
  12. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976)
  13. C. Paul Rogers III, Society for American Baseball Research, Dick Fowler — SABR BioProject (2026)
  14. Brian Morrison, Society for American Baseball Research, Phil Marchildon — SABR BioProject (2026)
  15. Fred Glueckstein, Society for American Baseball Research, Tony Lazzeri — SABR BioProject (2026)

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